Following the end of the Phoney War in the summer of 1940, German aircraft started to increasingly appear in the skies above Britain. The first German pilot to enter British air space following the declaration of war was Helmuth Pohle, who on 16 October 1939 led fifteen Junkers Ju 88 aircraft in an attack on the Forth Bridge. He was shot down by a Spitfire and became the first German prisoner of war. However, it wasn’t until the summer of the following year that German planes started appearing in numbers in the skies over Britain as they engaged with the RAF in the first stages of the Battle of Britain. Often flying at over 20,000 feet and silhouetted against the sky or obscured by cloud cover, it became clear that a major challenge from the ground would be identifying friend from foe.
The correct identification of enemy aircraft by observers on the ground soon became a matter of life and death. This was reinforced by a secret report which showed that in May 1940 ‘after two months, the casualties of the British Advanced Air Striking Force in France amounted to:—Shot down by the Germans, eight: Shot down by the French, nine’. In response magazines like Aeroplane and newspapers like the Daily Mirror rushed out aircraft identification guides with the silhouettes and any distinguishing features of enemy aircraft so spotters and interested members of the public could identify them. The Home Guard and the Royal Observer Corps were also quickly issued with aircraft guides, models and posters to aid identification, but for the public it was decided that a more fun way was needed to help distinguish Allied and German planes which superficially could look quite similar.
In the summer of 1940, as German aircraft started to increasingly appear in the skies above Britain, Temple Press brought out War Planes – A Card Game For Aircraft Spotters.
So, in 1940, Temple Press at the request of the government brought out War Planes – A Card Game For Aircraft Spotters. The pack contained sixty-seven cards illustrating five different views of thirteen RAF and Luftwaffe aircraft, plus two flag ‘key cards’. The British planes were the Defiant, Spitfire, Hurricane, Blenheim, Wellington, Whitley and the Hampden, and the German ones were the Messerschmitt 109, Messerschmitt 110, Heinkel 111, Heinkel 113, Dornier 215 and the Junkers 88. Each aircraft was shown drawn in silhouette from the front, side, above and below, the fifth view being a photograph. Also included was a range of technical information including engine size, maximum speed and key distinguishing features. An interesting quirk of the game was that Temple Press realised that the cards would have much more appeal if they could also be used as a conventional set of playing cards. So, while one set had no markings the rest could be used as a conventional fifty-two card pack with four suits composed of spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs.
Although the government and Temple Press did not know it at the time, the pack of cards played straight into the hands of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda chief. One card in the pack, the Heinkel He 113, was a fictitious German fighter invented by him for propaganda purposes to fool Britain into believing that Germany had a new superior aircraft. To reinforce the ruse Goebbels had formally announced that a new fighter had entered service with the Luftwaffe. The deception involved taking pictures of a rejected prototype plane, the Heinkel He 100 D-1s, at different airbases around Germany, each one sporting a livery connected to a fictional fighter group. Goebbels then published the pictures in the press stating the aircraft was a new design called the Heinkel 113 with a top speed greater than the Spitfire’s. The aircraft even appeared in a series of ‘action shots’ in combat over Denmark and Norway in Der Adler, the Luftwaffe magazine.
The deception was extremely successful, British intelligence compiling secret reports on the aircraft’s performance. The Heinkel 113 also appeared in a range of publications aimed at British aircraft spotters including the Daily Mirror’s Spot Them In The Air! published in 1940 and the War Planes card game. The card in the pack stated that the plane was a ‘Single-seat Fighter (1,599 h.p. Daimler Benz DB 60H motor) with an estimated speed of about 400mph at 19,000 feet’ (in comparison the Spitfire could only fly at 387mph). Even more embarrassingly for the British, RAF pilots reported shooting it down with several Heinkel 113 kills being claimed during the early months of the war.38
The cards illustrated five different views of thirteen British RAF and German Luftwaffe aircraft. An interesting quirk was that the game could also be used as a conventional set of playing cards.